Diary of an Avante-Garde Gardener,
digging Voss Gardens in the Santa Cruz Mountains,
providing organic produce for the Culinary Fellow at the Villa Montalvo Artists in Residency Program and private healthy chefs in my neighborhood.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Rethinking Plastic

As of March 20, plastic bags are banned here in Santa Cruz County. That means businesses will no longer bag purchases in plastic. Customers can buy paper bags or bring their own. Inconvenient at first, but a start. Now, rethinking how to use and reuse plastic packaging is a must.

I'm all for it. Necessity gives birth to invention.

Rustling through the fridge the other day, some annoying plastic apple packaging sparked an idea. Why not propagate seeds in it? I'd been running out of starting packs with bigger surface areas for seedlings. My whole cache of pots, trays and flats are recycled from nurseries. Why not?

What else is out there and how can it be reused?

I finished the last Fuji apple, delicious I might add, separated the top and the bottom of the package, cut holes in the bottom of each circle for drainage. and filled them with starting mix.

Pleased with the results I rummaged through the tupperware drawer searching for bottoms with lost tops. They'd be thrown out eventually. Now, with holes poked for drainage, a topless carry out tray can carry on as a mini-farm.

Imagine it overflowing with micro-greens, a house gift for foodies!

Way back in the Back To The Land Movement of the seventies, when organic and compost and recycling were not household words, we counter-culture types looked to raise consciousness about a lot of things, waste being one of them. Now there are laws to regulate it.

I've been sending my produce to chef in recycled paper and plastic bags. There are no more old bags in the house. What's next? Pondering... Any ideas out there?